American judo coach suffers vision loss in JetBlue coffee air incident
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Arturas Lanchinskas, 30, a third-degree black belt, was flying to Peru to coach the American team at the Pan American Judo Championships in July 2023 when the incident happened.
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Lanchinskas owns Darfight Martial Arts in Brooklyn and was on JetBule Flight 1825 when a flight attendant allegedly dropped a pot of scalding coffee, according to the Daily Mail.
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The coffee burned his face and right eye, according to a lawsuit obtained by Dailymail.com.
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'As a result of the hot coffee splashing onto Plaintiff's face and into his eye, he was caused to sustain severe burns to the right side of his face and severe injuries to his right eye,' the lawsuit reads.
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'It felt like a surge of fire hit the surface of my eyeball,' Lanchinskas told The New York Post. 'The pain was sharp and immediate, like a burning needle.'
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Coincidentally, the passenger seated next to Lanchinskas was a doctor and told him to flush his eye repeatedly with water.
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But the lawsuit alleges flight attendants were mad at Lanchinskas for using the washroom too often to flush his eye with water.
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Attorney, Erin R. Applebaum said in the lawsuit that the flight attendants were complaining that other passengers needed to use the bathroom.
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'He was even told, 'Sir, you're not the only one on the airplane, we have other guests who need to use the facilities,'' Applebaum said.
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Once the plane landed, Lanchinskas was rushed to a local hospital in Lima, where doctors treated the burns to his face and eye. But he was later diagnosed with a thermal injury and chemical burn to his right eye.
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